TN 2026 · Dummy Candidate Investigation · Post-Results
The question everyone was asking after the candidate lists dropped
329 Dummies.
How Many Actually Mattered?
The honest answer depends on how strict your definition is.
Three weeks before polling, 329 suspect candidate pairs were flagged: major-alliance
nominees who shared a name with another candidate in the same constituency. The thesis:
at least some were deliberate vote-splitters. Today the votes are in. So did it work?
Strict test (EXACT + NEAR_FULL matches only)
0
Seats where dummy votes provably covered the margin. In the cleanest test, zero seats turned on engineered name confusion.
Loose test (all flagged dummies including WORD_MATCH)
2
Razor-thin TVK losses where dummy vote totals exceeded the winning margin. Both under 0.35% of votes polled.
Dummy Classification · 3 tiers
Exact Match
64 pairs
Identical names after normalising prefixes and initials. Most likely to be engineered. Median 174 votes polled.
Near-Full Match
36 pairs
85%+ string similarity. Still high confidence. Median 210 votes polled. 0 strict-consequential.
Word Match
163 pairs
One shared significant name fragment. Noisiest signal. The 2 near-misses are both in this tier. Median 197 votes.
A
Anand Raj
Data journalist · ndranandraj.com
May 2026
Results Day Analysis
Tamil Nadu
2026 Elections
Dummy Candidates
Electoral Strategy
Name Confusion
Data Investigation
ECI Results